How great would life be if you could work in the same office or business unit with your best friends from Lehigh?  Working through the same logistic issues with your late night Fairmart friend?  Visiting a client site with your “undefeated” beruit team?

The great thing about graduating from Lehigh is that whether you knew someone on campus or not, there’s a connection we have when we realize we work with someone who graduated from Lehigh.  We may have even met once freshman year and then did the patented ‘Lehigh look away’ the rest of our LU tenure.  Somehow, if we find ourselves in the same office, our time on South Mountain gets us feeling like we’re super best friends.

Recently I attended the first Lehigh Corporate Coffee held at the Deloitte office in Arlington, VA.  Thanks to Brian Johnston ’88, who graciously reached out to all Deloitte LU alumni in their office to get together for FREE coffee and squagels (those square-bagel things – oddly shaped but good).  Consultant types tend to travel a bit, but we were lucky enough to get 8 alumni in the room.

The next hour or so was filled with some great caffeinated camaraderie over some Lehigh experiences good and bad, large and small.  It was really great to see fellow alumni who never knew each other connect with each other and find many things in common besides LU.  Build your network without leaving your office!

Full disclosure;  I’m on the Lehigh Development staff, so I help raise money for the school and there is a small give back message present in these meetings.  However these meetings are based around what YOU want to get out of it (besides, oh yeah, FREE coffee and food).  What are YOUR dreams for Lehigh?  Who would YOU hire as the next president?

Alumni Relations will be holding several of these over the summer and they are off to a great start.  If you’d like to host a Lehigh gathering at your workplace, contact Laura McGarry ’07 at lks2@lehigh.edu.

– Adam Selmasska ’06